Administrative History ↴
Judith Carroll and Company, Archaeological Consultants (11-13 Anglesea Street, Temple Bar, Dublin 2), are a group of professional archaeologists based in Dublin but working countrywide. They offer a wide range of archaeological services to both public and private clients; carrying out excavations, assessments, trial testing and monitoring for developments of all scales. Judith Carroll and Co. have produced a number of publications including "Dublin city: sources for archaeologists" (2003) and reports on excavations at Balrothery, Co. Dublin (2008). Judith Carroll and Co. carry out archaeological investigations under the Planning and Development Acts (2000) and the National Monuments Acts and Amendments (1930-2004).
This collection encompasses a number of archaeological investigations carried out in Dublin city by Judith Carroll and Co. Ltd. in 1998 - 2000. It includes the following sites:
98E0365 - Deputy Master's House, Kilmainham
Monitoring took place of the refurbishment and extension of the Deputy Master's House, Royal Hospital, Kilmainham, from August 1998 until February 1999. This house is within the grounds of the present Royal Hospital, erected in the 1680s and built as a hospital and refuge for ex-soldiers. The general area of the present Royal Hospital is reputedly the site of a Knights Hospitallers foundation, granted to the Knights Hospitallers of St John of Jerusalem by Strongbow in 1174. The church of St Maighnenn of Kilmainham, dating from the 7th or 8th century, is also reputed to be close to the present Royal Hospital, and the Kilmainham/ Islandbridge area is well known for its Viking burial finds. The present Deputy Master's House was erected in 1763 and replaced an earlier flanker (one of four symmetrical flankers of the main hospital).
Initial test-trenches within the basement of the Deputy Master's House and to the north and east of the present house revealed no archaeological structures. However, the presence of some fragments of late medieval 13th/14th-century tiles from the base of a trench to the immediate east of the house indicated medieval activity in the area. Consequently, full monitoring of all the basement excavations and the extensions and improvements to the north and east were carried out.
Within the basement of the house no trace of any earlier foundations that may have been associated with the earlier flanker built in the 1680s was revealed. The extension to the east of the house, which measured 16m x 8m, was brought down to a depth of 2.5m. There was no evidence for any structures pre-dating the construction of the present house, and this area to the east of the Deputy Master's House appears to have served as a general dump for the kitchen, with various layers of refuse containing a small amount of post-medieval pottery and glass being revealed. There was also considerable evidence for the artificial heightening of this area, with layers of red brick, stone and soil having been brought in to level up what appears to be have been a piece of land that sloped markedly to the east.
Close to the east face of the house the general area had been considerably disturbed by the insertion of later drains. A small box drain was revealed at the northern end of this extension. However, it should be pointed out that a fragment of a line-impressed medieval floor tile was retrieved close to the east face of the house at a depth of 2.5m and close to the location of the medieval tile fragments recovered during the initial trial-trenching.
The area to the immediate north of the house, measuring 12m x 12m, was lowered by 0.5-1m in order to provide a flat surface for landscaping. During the monitoring of the work, several walls, running north-south and east-west, were revealed; all appeared to be contemporary with the present house and seemed to form rooms connected to the basement area. However, a very fine, red brick, arched passageway was revealed in this area. This was 4m long, 2.7m wide and 1.4m high and appeared to back onto some subsurface basement rooms added on to the northern side of the house at a later period. The red brick passage terminated where the southern boundary wall of the sculpture garden is now. It was not possible to investigate this feature fully as it was very unstable and was being backfilled immediately. The roof of the structure had been removed at sometime in the past, and the interior of the passage appeared to be covered with soot.
With the exception of the medieval floor tiles, no evidence was found for any archaeological structures on the site, and no further medieval artefacts or finds were recovered. There was no evidence for the earlier flanker on the site of the current Deputy Master's House, although all traces of this may have been removed with the digging out of the foundations for the present house. The impressed floor tiles suggest a medieval presence in the area, but it was clear that they were not in situ. No medieval horizons were found during the monitoring, suggesting that the earlier Knights Hospitallers foundation lies elsewhere on this important site.
99E0711 - The Courtyard, Royal Hospital Kilmainham
Monitoring of engineers’ test-trenches within the main courtyard of the Royal Hospital, Kilmainham, took place on 24 January 2000. Plans to pave the main central courtyard of the Royal Hospital commenced with five engineers’ test-trenches.
The Kilmainham/Islandbridge area is well known for its Viking burials, and a great many Viking finds are recorded from the area. In Boe’s work on Viking finds from Great Britain and Ireland, a large percentage of Viking stray finds from Dublin are provenanced to Kilmainham (Boe 1940). Wallace (1990) suggests that, as a considerable number of archaeological finds from the cemetery mentioned above are both domestic and military in nature, the community represented was not only a military but also a settled population.
The work consisted of digging five trenches using a small digger in the main courtyard of the Royal Hospital. Each of the five test-pits was c. 1.5m x 2m and a maximum depth of 3m. The excavation of each pit was monitored for archaeological layers beneath the imported gravel layer, which forms the present courtyard surface. Each pit showed consistent layers beneath the courtyard surface. Beneath an imported, yellow, sandy gravel layer and a geotextile mesh (courtyard surface), there appeared to be a rubble layer with some redbrick and stone inclusions. Beneath this again was a black limestone and humic layer containing crushed redbrick pieces and stone inclusions. Underlying this layer was a brown, sandy clay layer with some decayed limestone inclusions; this layer overlay a disturbed mortar layer, which indicated an earlier modern building layer. This mortar layer was directly over the natural, mid-brown, silty clay subsoil.
The test-pits did not reveal any archaeological finds or features. On examination of excavated spoil, no finds of any kind were uncovered.
References
Boe, J. 1940 Norse antiquities in Ireland. In H. Shetelig (ed.), Viking antiquities in Great Britain and Ireland. Part III. Oslo.
Wallace, P. 1990 The origins of Dublin. In H. Clarke (ed.), Medieval Dublin. Dublin.
Further monitoring was conducted in the courtyard of the Royal Hospital, Kilmainham, between 27 September and 27 October 2000. The courtyard was to be resurfaced with cobbles, with a new surface-water drainage system installed. This necessitated the excavation of pipe-trenches up to 1.8m deep. Paving material post-dating 1680 was revealed during excavation of trenches within the courtyard. This consisted of two components, a white, highly indurated, stony material with an aggregate of either chalk or lime, and compacted red brick. These were found independently or interleaved with depths of up to 0.35m at 49.36m OD. Cutting this were two culverts crossing the central axes of the courtyard. These were constructed of red brick, lining a channel 0.3m wide and covered with flagstones. No archaeological deposits or features were uncovered.
00E0286 - Cork Street
Monitoring and excavation took place owing to a planning condition imposed on the development of 109 Cork Street as apartments. The site is within the Dublin City zone of archaeological potential. It is outside the walls of the medieval city, at the western edge of its suburbs just to the south of the Liberty of St Thomas. It would once have been situated on the south of St Thomas’s meadow, beside a tributary of the Poddle in the vicinity of a mill site.
Monitoring of construction works took place during May/June 2000. During monitoring six wood-lined pits of 19th-century date came to light and were excavated. Apart from some 18th-century pottery, there were no further archaeological features or finds.
